Asheville to Trinidad CO: my adventure.
Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 12:16 am
I couldn't get the Holley carb I ordered from the carb builder everyone recommends here (forget the name, something state) to run right and make enough power and I was down to the wire so I put the Edelbrock 1706 back on. I dealt with carb overheating issues the entire trip and did a lot of night riding because of this. Fine when flat out cruising and running enough gas through the carb, but once I had to slow down to pass through some podunk town it would stall and refuse to start on Main St. happened a few times. I know its the carb since I'd dribble some gas into the throat to try to coax it into starting and I'd see it vaporize as soon as it hit the hot carb butterfly. Put a thermal isolator gasket in at a rest stop, it did nothing. I made an abysmal average of 4.5 MPG for the trip, towing a 1800 lb car trailer and a 4000 lb toyota truck. Top speed was 55mph with 50 being average using 93 octane gas, then 91 when that was only thing available (seemed to make no difference) with 10% ethanol used a few times when that was only option. Added lead substitute to keep the vavles happy. Travco crawled on until it finally met its match on Raton pass and found a hill it just wouldn't go up. Thankfully I had a friend with me and we were able to unload the Yota broken down half in the lane of Raton pass on I-25 and the reduced weight put some pep back in its step and it motored up the pass into Trinidad no problem. It broke down again 500 yards from its new home on a big hill, I don't think it likes the 7500ft altitude but I'm not going to bother rejetting the carb since it is going to live here maybe forever, and if it does leave it'll be to go downhill. Still running but no power, stalls easy and engine runs "fluffy". In route I checked the engine timing and it was WAY advanced from the mark, I put it back on the mark at a rest stop but it lost too much power so I had to advance it to the original mark. I suspect timing chain issues, maybe a jumped tooth but I'm not sure. I'm ready to give it all a rest, 4.5 mpg @93 octane cost was really real, gassing up was like a reverse slot machine where you watch your bank account go down. I've never gotten better then 6mpg even unloaded and thats with lots of tinkering, carb changes, all tuneup stuff like points and plugs changed and on and on. 6mpg may be the best a 71 413 with 59k miles will ever do, at least thats where I'm at with it. Doesn't matter I'm boondocked indefinitely, posting right now from 7500ft in southern Colorado, I'll be here until I get my off grid house built. Just ordered components for a 600w 24v solar system, trying to find a extension for the fat propane hose so I can run 100lb propane tanks. I'm here for a while, maybe forever. On the fence about trying to make it all winter here (not that bad compared to the 9000ft northern Colorado town I used to live in I think), rent a room somewhere in town or go back to Asheville where I still have a ton of stuff in storage I need to deal with. Anyways I'm glad to be here, glad I made it, proud of the Travco but happy not to have to deal with its issues any more. I did buy a marine bilge blower and I 3 ft. flex pipe to install that should blow cool air on the carb and maybe fix the issue but I'm taking a break from all of it for now and focusing on earthbag building. Tired of smelling like gas to be honest and without a plastic carb like the Thermoquad I'm guessing heat sink issues are always going to be a problem when flat out cruising in the summer. Thanks for reading my rant/novella, I will be editing none of it enjoy the stream of consciousness writing.